18. August. 2012 | von Christopher Rudolf

Friedrichstraße corner Albrechtstraße – one of Berlin's top addresses. This is where Matthias Jahn has established his styling salon Catwalk–Hairfashion.

Since then, the door hasn't stopped turning. Celebrities, politicians, fashionistas, students, nonconformists, individualists and average people keep coming and going. When you're that busy, you need appointment scheduling with clear structure and easy handling. A brief conversation with the boss himself:

zeitfest: What was your first thought when we introduced zeitfest to you?
Matthias: I thought that this was exactly what I had been looking for for a long time and no one could offer me.

zeitfest: For the last 3 months now you've been using zeitfest every day in the business. Something must have gone wrong at some point. Do you miss scribbling in your paper calendar when you're busy at the till?
Matthias: Things did go wrong, but purely due to human error on our part. It simply happened that appointments were deleted because the customer data wasn't entered precisely enough. So we clicked wrong when entering and everything was gone. It's also happened that we have customers with the same name and one cancelled and unfortunately we deleted the wrong one. But that's not the system's fault, it's the human's, as is almost always the case. As for scribbling around in the calendar, we don't miss that at all. A clear no.

zeitfest: In your paper calendar you used Tippex, on the computer you can move appointments by double-clicking. What's faster?
Matthias: Um.. at the moment still Tippex, but only because appointments can't be moved over longer periods. Because we have such a small monitor here, you only have two days on the screen and you can't move the appointment over days. That's a bit clunky.

zeitfest: How long was the adjustment period? Did all employees get the hang of it quickly?
Matthias: About 1.5 weeks, now everyone is quite confident and proficient, everything goes very quickly.

zeitfest: Were there any criticisms or concerns from the employees?
Matthias: Not really. At the beginning there were of course some problems or teething troubles with the software. Hidden features that you only discover over time, clearly, but otherwise they were very open to it.

zeitfest: You haven't activated online booking yet and use zeitfest exclusively as a digital calendar and schedule. Is that alone worth it?
Matthias: That alone is definitely worth it. Because it's simply very clear, handwritten names in particular are sometimes very difficult to decipher, so that customers were addressed with the wrong names. That's much better now and doesn't happen anymore. It's simply clearer and yes, it's totally worth it.

zeitfest: What do you expect when you activate online booking on your website and your own iPhone and Android app is ready?
Matthias: I think that will be good. Many customers are very interested in it. Especially that they can book appointments outside of business hours. For us, of course, it's an easy relief that we don't have to answer the phone as often. That saves up to 3-4 hours of pure phone time per day. I've even hired a receptionist for that.

zeitfest: Do the employees actually use the calendar option from home? You can log in from anywhere.
Matthias: No, not at all. Not at the moment because I haven't given them the details yet. I use it a lot myself. I haven't talked to the employees about it yet, I don't think they even know the address [laughs]. Maybe we'll catch up on that.

zeitfest: All in all. Would you recommend zeitfest?
Matthias: Yes, I already have. What was the reaction? Good and very interested, but no internet connection. Well, that can be changed [laughs].

zeitfest: That's it. Thank you for your time!